Part of the Story

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Galatians 2.20 Sunday, April 8, 2007 Easter Sunday Shelton WA

PART OF THE STORY

I remember hearing about a children’s Sunday school teacher who took the time one Easter Sunday to ask each one of her students the question, “What does Easter mean to you?”

Well, after she went around the class and got all the unusual answers—all the ones you’d expect from a Sunday school class of kids, anyway—one of the students rolled his eyes in disgust and blurted out, “Easter means egg- salad sandwiches for the next two weeks.” Probably not quite the answer she was looking for. But at least it was honest.

You know, as I thought about that, I thought about how so many different meanings end up getting tacked on to so many different things. We live in a world where there are so many influences coloring how we see things… how we understand them… how we interpret them. And we live in a time when these influences are being multiplied exponentially.

It’s hard to keep up with it. Sometimes it’s hard to know what we think anymore. It changes with each new discover… with each new scientific breakthrough.

That’s why it’s good for us to stop and ask ourselves the kinds of questions that dig a little deeper… that go below the surface… that gets down to the heart. You see not only do we need to understand what we believe; but even more importantly, we need to know why we believe what we believe. And

John Grant Page 1 5/25/2018 011206e90cae57c7488fee0c4de40062.doc Page 2 of 6 that’s why that Sunday school teacher’s question is such a good one: What does Easter mean to you?

You know, as a kid growing up in a nominally religious family, I remember hearing the Easter Story… pretty much every year. Part of our annual Easter family tradition was to stay up late and watch the movie “The Robe” on TV. Every year, for as long as I can remember, we would all sit around in bean- bag chairs to watch that movie. And to be honest, I’m not sure if it was the movie, or the fact that I got to stay up late that was the best part.

You know, I also remember getting up early every Easter Sunday morning to head out for Church. Sometimes, when we were late, I remember sitting in the aisles, or standing in the doorways or the hallways. Church was always packed full on Easter Sunday.

I remember all the pomp and procession that surrounded Easter Mass. Really, it was a pretty amazing thing for a kid to experience. There was something special… something holy… something sacred about the whole thing that seemed to lift this church service above every other church service. And you know, even as a kid, I had a funny feeling it had something to do with that Easter Story I had heard about so often.

You see growing up I heard the Easter Story over and over again—in church, in catechism, on TV, from my grandma. I understood what Easter was all about: Jesus died on the cross for my sins; he was put in a tomb with a huge old stone in front of it; and then he was raised from the dead three days later—Easter Sunday. I understood. I got it. If someone were to ask me that Sunday school teacher’s question: “What does Easter means to

John Grant Page 2 5/25/2018 011206e90cae57c7488fee0c4de40062.doc Page 3 of 6 you?” I could tell them… I could tell them just exactly what Easter was all about.

But if they were to press me on those last two words… the “to you” part. “What does Easter mean to you?” Well, I just might stammer a bit. I might hesitate. I just might not have as good of an answer. And, I suppose, if I were to be perfectly honest, I think my answer might have sounded a bit more like egg-salad sandwiches for two weeks than anything profound or meaningful or even religious.

After all, to a kid anyway, Easter is about colored eggs, jelly beans, chocolate bunnies, and marshmallow peeps. It’s about Easter dresses and Easter bonnets. It’s about pomp, procession, and the story about Jesus being raised from the dead.

The thing is, in our house—and I suspect in many others as well—when Easter was over… when it was all finished… when the story was all said and done… we carefully, and oh so reverently closed the Easter Story book, tucked it away on a shelf for another year, and got on with life.

Easter was a great story—“The greatest story ever told.” It made for one spectacular church service. And I certainly was glad that Jesus rose from the dead. It certainly made me happy that my sins were forgiven. But for me it was still just a story—a true story… an important story… one I believed with all my heart—but it was still just a story.

Over the years, as I grew up, I never forgot the Easter story. I never forgot what Easter was all about. And you know, I suppose, I never really doubted it either. I never stopped believing. I accepted the truth of what I had been

John Grant Page 3 5/25/2018 011206e90cae57c7488fee0c4de40062.doc Page 4 of 6 taught all those years ago. But still, somehow… somehow… it always remained for me just a story reverently tucked away on a shelf… a story to be cherished… a story to be loved by all… even a story to be believed. But it was a story that was confined to that once a year Easter event. For me, it was a story stuck in time.

Oh, I suppose it’s like a lot of things. You read about them, you study them in school… in history class or literature class, you understand them, you accept them, you believe they are real, but somehow you’re not a part of them. They don’t affect you. They’re stuck in time… locked away somewhere in the past. They happened… once upon a time… but that event is over… that time is gone… we’re living in a different time with different events that capture and hold us.

We read about Columbus sailing the ocean blue in 1492. And maybe, if the narrative is engaging enough, we can become caught up in the adventure. But when that last page is turned and the book is closed, the adventure is over. We’re able to dip into it for just a moment. We’re able to linger there for a time… pausing briefly—but we can’t stay. It’s not our story; we’re not a part of it. There’s another story… another narrative that has captured us… one that is intensely personal.

For so many years, that’s what Easter was like for me. On Easter Sunday I would dip into the experience. I would become all caught up in the whole thing—all the ceremony… all the reverence… all the celebration. But when 12:00 came around and church let out… the book was closed. Life moved on. Somehow I never found myself in that story. I never let myself become part of it. And even more to the point: I never let it become a part of me.

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All that changed, though, when those words of Paul got hold of me. “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2.20).

It was the pronouns—“I”… “me.” These were the words of a person who was part of the story. He wasn’t just telling the story… he wasn’t just describing an event like a reporter on the evening news. Paul was a part of the story. He was caught up in it… swept away in its power and passion. Paul was immersed in the Easter story in a way that was truly transformational.

Those words… “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me”… those words became for me a sort of bridge. They took my story—my life—and fit it into the Easter story. Those words synced my personal narrative into God’s greater narrative—the narrative of love and grace. And there—in the midst of that Easter story… in the middle of the greatest story ever told—I found myself… my true self.

What does Easter mean to me? It means: “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”

It means that Easter is not just an event that happened 2,000 years ago in some small forgotten corner of the world. Easter is something that is happening all around us… every day… all over the world. It is something

John Grant Page 5 5/25/2018 011206e90cae57c7488fee0c4de40062.doc Page 6 of 6 that happens to us and in us. Easter means things can be different… they can be better… they can be made new. Easter means God is at work—even now—the story is not over—not by a long shot—and God is inviting each one of us to become a part of that story.

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